Vonciel Jones Hill Still Believes In the Trinity Parkway

The city councilwoman and chair of the council’s transportation committee has a piece in today’s Dallas Morning News urging citizens not to lose faith on the Trinity Parkway, even though more and more people have and everyone should.

In the first paragraph, Jones Hill says, “Dallas exists because of business, not because of lakes or rivers. Business needs a strong transportation system to be able to thrive.” In the last, she says, “Imagine what a fully realized Trinity — lakes, athletic fields, bridges, flood control, transportation improvements — can do.” Does she make an argument between those paragraphs that solves those seemingly contradictory statements? Not really. But maybe I’m just stupid. I’ll pull out a few sections for your perusal. Maybe you can help me.

“To continue to have our economy grow, we need to increase the capacity of the freeways near downtown by 250,000 trips per day.” This is stated as a fact, but I don’t know where that number comes from.

The Trinity Parkway is “a toll road inside the levees on the downtown side. Portions would be four lanes; they would transition to six lanes where the traffic count justified the expansion. A full expansion could not be considered until 2025, and then only when the traffic count justified it.” Since there is not even a tentative start date on building the parkway, where does the 2025 date come from?

“This year, the Parkway Environmental Impact Study will be finished, and the city will receive the record of decision. As a community, we will know what can be done in the Trinity floodway and maintain the required flood control protection.” So, basically, there is a chance that we will not be able to build anything at all. Hm. Sounds like a good time to tap the brakes, wait for the the result, and then —

“Now is the time to go to work and design a Trinity Parkway that increases traffic capacity so Dallas residents can get from their homes to their jobs and is at the same time compatible with the park.” Oh, so never mind. That is literally the next sentence.

She says that recent studies show that 60 percent of the people that would theoretically use the theoretical parkway live and work in Dallas and “these folks along with the voters who have twice approved the Trinity Parkway deserve our best efforts to design and construct a waterfront boulevard that carries 250,000 person trips per day.” Nice try. A tollway and a boulevard are two different things, and the chair of the transportation committee definitely knows the difference, even on a cursory level.

Look, I get where Jones Hill is coming from. Kind of. She is looking out for her constituents. Sort of. In her mind, we go ahead with every other big project, no matter how doomed or under-funded or short-sighted, and then we’re going to pull the plug on the first doomed, under-funded, short-sighted project south of downtown. No way. Yeah, I get that. But there are better fights to fight.

Keep me up to date on the latest happenings and all that D Magazine has to offer.

Comments

dallasboiler

It’s a “free option” for her district and constituents, so her unabashed support is not surprising.

Without getting into the politics of whether it’s correct or not, her district (District 3) receives more value in city services than what it pays for (just an economic reality). Any long-term fiscal issues caused by cost overruns or issues with this project will not directly affect her constituents as much as it would other districts. So, little to no downside risk for her.

Additionally, the majority of the contracts to build the road (highway) will go to Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (M/WBEs). Her district likely has a dispropotionate number of those businesses, and thus, stands to benefit more from the construction project. So, only upside for her district (and her political career).

So, if I was her, I’d probably be 100% for this project too … if I’m narrowly thinking about what’s best for my district and not necessarily the city as a whole.

Pegaso

Does anyone really think she actually wrote that? It didn’t mention Jesus or racism once.

Edward

My thoughts exactly when I read the piece in the DMN. Although the logic was incoherent, as pointed out by Mr. Crain, the grammar and sentence structure was spot on, with bursts of what appeared to be some form of logic and thought – two things not usually associated with her.

I bet if you went up and asked her about it, she would say “What op-ed in the DMN? I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Michael

Many op-eds by local politicos are ghost written by someone other than the author. I rarely here complaints about the Mayor, for example.